1. Field of the Invention
The present inventions relates to an image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic copying apparatus, a laser printer, or a complex machine thereof, and particularly relates to an image forming apparatus having a rear surface unit that is detachable from an engine main body.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional, in comparably large scale image forming apparatuses with the width thereof exceeding one meter, in order to simplify the repair of the engine main body, the structures of the power source, control portion, exhaust system and the like positioned on the back surface of an apparatus main body have normally been combined together in a separate unit (referred to below as the rear surface unit), and when performing repair the rear surface unit can be easily detached from the engine main body. With this structure, the efficiency of maintenance and checking operations is increased and, due to suppressing the width of each unit to 800 mm or less when the image forming apparatus is disassembled in order to meet the minimum opening width standards for an elevator, the transport of the apparatus has been improved.
In this type of image forming apparatus, normally the rear surface unit connected to the engine main body is formed having a smaller installation area and a substantially equal height compared to that of the engine main body. Thus the installation area of the rear surface unit is small compared with the height from the contact surface of the unit center of gravity and thus the rear surface unit has a structure that easily falls over when detached. For this reason, it is necessary to install a fall preventing member to prevent the rear surface unit from falling over.
An example of such a fall preventing member is disclosed in for example Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Application No. S57-93180 and Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Application No. H6-196871. However, both of the above have problems that need to be solved and that will be discussed below with reference to the diagrams.
Technologies relating to the present invention are also disclosed in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H5-336623 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H4-019175.